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Drupal Camp Scotland 2013 Double-Header

This week's podcast features two Drupal Scots: Duncan Davidson (recorded live in a back alley right after Drupal Camp Scotland 2013) and Brian Ward (recorded via Skype, post-event). Duncan is the Scottish regional manager and UK Professional Services Manager for i-KOS and Brian is a developer at heehaw.digital in Edinburgh.

I apologise for the slight audio deficiencies that crop up in both recordings.

Meet Duncan Davidson

Duncan has been involved in running the Scottish Drupal Camps since the very first one in 2010, which he set up in just a couple of weeks when he found out Addison Berry was staying in Edinburgh at the time.

Duncan echoes how I feel about the Drupal community, "It crosses so many genres of people, their quirks and foibles; it brings a cross-section of humanity together that probably otherwise wouldn't be brought together."

I've been asking people recently about their favorite Drupal modules. This is the interview in which I decided I have to disqualify Views ... sorry, Earl. My excuse is that it is going into Drupal 8's core, so that takes it out of the running. In reality, it's because 7 times out of 10, it is people's first answer. :-)

Go check out the miiCard and its Drupal Module. It is a Drupal integration with the miiCard API that, according to its makers, lets users "prove their identity to the same level as a passport or driver's licence purely online". The miiCard team is looking for reviews and help to get the module ready for prime time.

Meet Brian Ward

Brian Ward from Hee-Haw Digital in Edinburgh came to Drupal only about a year ago, thanks to a new manager who, "Was quite adamant about showing us that Drupal was going to be the better way of doing things." He goes on to say that Drupal "is probably the most powerful CMS I've used so far. It's one of the biggest learning curves; I think everyone would agree, but it's easier to do things faster. You can do the complicated things faster than most CMS's. That makes it a good CMS to use in a digital agency."

Brian's favorite module plug actually goes to Commerce, because "it works out of the box and it is really easy to customise."

He also tells a funny story about now being so deep into Drupal that he has even configured a Wordpress site to work like Drupal, "And hey! It was a nice site! But it was the only way it [ed.: his site design] would ever happen. Wordpress is usually an absolute minefield ...".